Monthly Archives: September 2009

Patent auctions will do little to help independent inventors sell their patents Those seeking ways to generate revenue from their patentable ideas will find the recent NY Times article entitled “Patent Auctions Provide Protections for Inventors,” written by Steve Lohr, to be an interesting read. However, as someone who works with entrepreneurs and corporations wishing to monetize their patent rights, I find it necessary to comment on the assertion that patent auctions can operate to “provide protections” for independent inventors, as well as the underlying premise that these it is generally possible for non-corporate inventors to generate value from their patent rights irrespective of the underlying subject matter of the patents.* As an initial matter, the NY Times article states that “[independent inventors] can often find themselves in court, battling big corporations, spending piles of money on lawyers and leaving it up to judges and juries to determine the value of their hard-won patents.” This makes me wonder if the fact-checkers took a break when this article was presented for publication. The story of the lone “David” inventor battling in court against the evil “Goliath” corporation that steals a patented idea not only does not occur “often,” relative to the number of patents issued each year, it almost never occurs–a Continue Reading →

OPEN INNOVATION INTERVIEW WITH BRADEN KELLEY I recently was interviewed by Braden Kelley of Blogging Innovation about the interplay between Open Innovation and the law. For those interested in Open Innovation topics, Braden’s blog is a great resource. The link to my interview is here: http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/labels/Jackie%20Hutter.html Braden and I will both be participating in the Open Innovation Summit being held in Orlando on December 2-4, 2009 along with several other open innovation leaders, authors, and consultants. I will be leading a panel currently titled: “Patents as Tools to Accelerate Innovation – How To Get Your Organization On the Right Path” September 18, 2009 is the last day for the $400 early bird discount. You can get an extra $300 discount by using the code for Blogging Innovation readers can save an extra $300 by registering using the code – NXB458. Tweet This Buzz This Delicious Digg This Reddit Stumble This

In remembrance of the 1 year anniversary of the Financial Meltdown, Forbes.com has included me in a list of bloggers asked to provide an economic forecast for 2010 and also to provide some insights as to what economic markers I use in my work. This is an interesting assignment for me: few who know me would consider me to be an economist and, indeed, such training was wholly absent from my many years of college, graduate and law school. This might actually be a good thing, however, because, as discussed in this recent Robert Lezner StreetTalk post, none of the so-called “experts”–even those at the highest levels of power and prestige (except perhaps Dr. Nouriel Roubini)–predicted the financial instability that would result from Wall Street’s increasing reliance on innovative, high yield financial instruments. Notwithstanding the vast reliance put on financial expertise, based on the results of the last couple of years, it now seems like financial predictions are akin to what William Goldman said about entertainment experts who are paid to forecast whether a movie will be a blockbuster: “Nobody knows anything.” Since none of the highly compensated experts successfully predicted the performance of the financial markets in recent years, certainly my lack of expertise on the subject should not bar Continue Reading →